


The One With Christmas At Work

by isacabral



Series: in another life you must have been mine [4]
Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: F/F, Friends AU, Yes again, let me live, merry pitchmas 2018, well belated actually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-12 11:42:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17466914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isacabral/pseuds/isacabral
Summary: Beca was supposed to have Christmas time off work so she could spend it with her chosen family. But things don't ever work the way you want them to.





	The One With Christmas At Work

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bechloehuh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bechloehuh/gifts).



> Pitchmas gift for my husband Colestar because no one will go without a Pitchmas present on my watch. Love you dude!
> 
> Also million thanks to my beta @dumbacapellapotatoes for being an amazing fixer-upper and making this an enjoyable read.
> 
> Enjoy!

“Say goodbye elves, I’m off to New York,” Beca called out, walking down the stairs of their rental house in Atlanta with her carry-on trailing behind her.

 

Christmas was two days away and Chloe had been planning this reunion ever since Emily said she’d be alone at the Bellas house during the holidays.

 

Surprisingly enough, everyone had managed to get some time off. Even Beca, who was in the middle of producing a very mediocre rap album. She had even been able to get on a plane with Chloe, a day earlier than most of the girls were scheduled to arrive, so they could help Legacy decorate the house.

 

And then she had received a very diva-like voicemail from Pimp-Lo demanding she got back because “his creative juices were flowing” and she should come back to “produce the shit out of his masterpiece”.

 

So much for a Christmas break.

 

“I can’t believe you’re not gonna be here for Christmas,” Chloe said with a pout.

 

Her sad, mournful eyes almost made Beca call her boss back and tell her she was not coming back.

 

Almost.

 

“You’re really not coming back?” Aubrey asked, having just arrived that morning and already donning a Christmas sweater and the pointy elf ears Emily was making all of them wear.

 

“I don’t know, dude,” Beca sighed, frustrated. “This artist is really unpredictable and it’s possible we’ll bring on the new year at the studio too.”

 

“That’s not fair,” Emily adopted Chloe’s pout, arms crossed. “You don’t even like your job!”

 

“Not everyone likes their job, Legacy.”

 

“Oh, I like my job,” Cynthia-Rose piped in.

 

“Me too,” Jessica and Ashley said in unison.

 

“I can’t _wait_ to get back to the Lodge,” Aubrey agreed.

 

“Thanks, guys. That really helped,” she said grumpily. “Can we go, Chlo?”

 

Her girlfriend nodded, grabbing her car keys. “As much as I don’t want to…” Beca opened her mouth to apologize once again but Chloe interrupted her. “It’s what you have to do. I understand.”

 

“Thank you,” Beca murmured, leaning in to place a gentle kiss on her lips. “I’ll see you nerds on New Year’s day!”

 

“You’re not gonna be here New Year’s Eve?!”

 

Beca fled before she had to give any more explanations.

 

//

 

As Beca begrudgingly made her way from her apartment to the studio at an ungodly hour in the morning, on Christmas Eve, she couldn’t keep her mind from wandering to the better ways she had spent her past Christmases...

 

_Beca was lounging in Chloe’s single attic bedroom at the Bellas house when the door opened wide, Stacie and Amy looking around frantically._

 

_“Okay Ames, you look in the bathroom and I’ll look in the back closet,” Stacie said, making a beeline for said closet._

 

_“Uh, guys?” Beca asked, afraid to even ask what they might be up to._

 

_“Yeah, Beca? Why don’t you take a walk? This doesn’t concern you,” Amy said, her voice muffled for some reason, with some really suspicious noises coming from the bathroom._

 

_“We are looking for our Christmas presents from Chloe,” Stacie clarified when Beca just kept looking at them in confusion._

 

_“What!? That’s terrible!” Beca’s eyes widened when Stacie ignored her and crawled under Chloe’s desk._

 

_“No, no, we do it every year!”_

 

 _“Oh,_ that _makes it not terrible,” Beca said sarcastically. “You can’t do this!”_

 

_“But we never find them!” Stacie complained. “She’s always so good at hiding them.”_

 

_“Yeah, no worries, Shawshank,” Amy said, emerging from the bathroom with a rumpled shirt and using Beca’s towel to dry her hands. Beca suspected she had simply used Chloe’s bathroom under the guise of looking for presents. “We’re just gonna search here for a while and then go into our room or something, okay?”_

 

_Beca’s panic increased tenfold; what if they decided to look into her sock drawer?_

 

_“No, not okay!” she jumped from the bed, forcefully grabbing her towel back from Amy. “You can’t look for Chloe’s presents!”_

 

 _“We_ have _to,” Stacie said in a dramatic tone, using the fact Beca was out of the bed to do a quick search there. “Beca, aren’t you worried about what get Chloe for Christmas?”_

 

_Beca and Chloe had just started dating a few of weeks prior but they had also been friends for two years before that, so Beca was fairly confident in her gift-giving abilities when it came to her girlfriend._

 

_“No, I have a great idea for a present for her,” she said with more confidence than she felt because regardless of how confident she was in her abilities she had yet to find a good enough present for Chloe._

 

_“Oh, that’s it, a great idea?” Amy mocked her._

 

 _“Tiny, that’s not enough,” Stacie pressed on. “_ _I mean what if she gets you a great present, two medium presents, and a bunch of little presents? And you've just gotten her_ **_one_ ** _great present? I mean, that's just gonna make her feel bad! Why would you do that to her, Beca? Why? Why?”_

 

_Beca hated how she was letting them get into her head._

 

_“If I help you, we can find them faster!”_

 

_Each one of them went to a different corner of the room until Amy crawled under Chloe’s bed and shouted triumphantly._

 

_“We have a live one!” she shook the bag she had found._

 

_“Oh, it’s a Macy’s bag,” Stacie said excitedly._

 

 _Beca thought it was odd that her girlfriend was hiding presents under her bed_ _— such an obvious location — until Amy read out loud the tag from the one shoe inside the bag:_

 

 _‘_ _Dear losers, do you really think I'd hide presents under the couch? P.S.: Beca, I knew they'd break you.’_

 

Beca snorted at the memory. Her first Christmas dating Chloe had been such a mess. But then again so had all the holidays they had decided to spend with the Bellas. The first time, back when Aubrey was still their captain and they weren’t so close, Beca ended up getting wiper blades from Amy (she didn’t even have a car).

 

There was also the time they decided to have a costume party, Christmas themed. It had ended up with Amy dressed up as Santa Clause, Flo as what she called Navidad Armadillo (the store had run out of Christmas costumes) and Lily as Superman, no explanations offered.

 

Yet Beca had loved every single minute of it.

 

She heaved a sigh as her Uber stopped in front of her studio and she hopped off. Was this really worth missing out on Bellas Christmas?

 

She hoped so.

 

//

 

Pimp-Lo was a dimwit. He really was.

 

Beca was trying very hard to tap into her Christmas spirit so she wouldn’t do something she could regret later. Or she could just deck him in the balls with boughs of holly and call it a Merry Christmas.

 

She was very much tempted to.

 

She was singing over his… lyrics — it pained her to call them that — trying to improve the song the best she could. Instead, she kept being talked down to and shut off by the artist and his entourage and her boss wasn’t being any help.

 

It was so frustrating. And she was losing her patience.

 

“I think what she means is: ‘your song was always great.’”

  
“ _No,_ ” Beca said through her gritted teeth. “What I mean is ‘what you gave me was a steaming pile of—”

 

“Okay!” Evan interrupted before it got out of hand. “Beca, can I talk to you for a moment?” She dragged Beca to a quiet corner before whispering, “What are you doing?”

 

“How can you take his side?” Beca whisper-shouted in frustration.

 

“Sides? Why are you talking about sides? We’re producers, we take no sides!”

 

Beca rubbed her face in frustration. “I’m missing Christmas with my  _family_ to be here. And he won’t even listen to me! You won’t back me up! You _know_ what I did was better than that crap he wants us to use.”

 

“Beca, honey…” her boss used that placating tone she hated it. She hated everything about this. “Our job is to bring the artist’s vision to life. No matter how crappy it is.”

 

Was this really worth it?

 

//

 

Chloe tried to call Beca for the fifth time in a row, only to have her call go straight to voicemail. Again. She groaned in frustration, dropping her phone on the couch with more force than necessary. It was almost midnight and she wanted to talk to her girlfriend, damn it!

 

“Chlo, it’s your turn,” Aubrey said, handing her a present, bringing Chloe back to this moment.

 

They were exchanging gifts before supper but it felt so odd to do it without Beca.

 

“We miss her too,” Emily said, rubbing her arm with a sad smile on her face.

 

Chloe felt tears of frustration prickle behind her eyelids; she wasn’t mad at _Beca._ It was just unfair that for the first time since she could remember Beca would be completely missing Christmas. She was also maybe just a little bit afraid this would be the beginning of a nasty pattern of missed holidays and family events.

 

She pushed _that_ thought away quickly and refocused on the box now on her lap.

 

“Guys, look, it’s snowing!” Stacie exclaimed, gesturing to the window where they all started to pile up to watch it.

 

“You guys think it’s snowing in New York where Shawshank is spending Christmas alone?” Amy asked after a brief moment of silence.

 

“Amy!” several girls scolded her but the Australian simply shrugged.

 

Chloe chuckled, distracted by the interaction, looking out the window herself. One of the things she had always loved about winter at Barden was watching the snowfall. It was a fondness she shared with Beca.

 

“Hey,” a soft whisper into her ear made Chloe jump, a voice she’d recognize anywhere sent a slight shiver down her spine.

 

She turned quickly, pulling Beca into a bruising hug the second she laid on her. Part of her couldn’t really believe Beca was here.

 

“What are you doing here?” she croaked out, feeling the telltale sign of tears as Beca’s arm snaked around her waist to hold Chloe close.

 

“I wanted to be with you,” Beca mumbled into Chloe’s shoulder, low enough only she could hear. She was trying to be nonchalant about it all but Choe could hear the emotion she was failing at holding back. “I missed you so much.”

 

The Bellas were all silent for once, no doubt trying to give them a modicum of privacy. They all aww’d at them when Chloe leaned in for a kiss before Beca could grumble about being put on the spotlight.

 

“I couldn’t stand being away from you guys. It’s Christmas!” Beca continued after their kiss.

 

It caused Chloe’s heart to skip a beat in her chest; how could she ever think Beca would let missing the holidays become a pattern?

 

“That’s very mushy of you, Beca, it really is,” Amy said out loud, breaking the warmth of the moment. “But where are our presents?”

 

“Yeah, we looked into your luggage and all we could find was your vibrator again,” Stacie added, winking for good measure.

 

Chloe couldn’t help but giggle as Beca groaned, cheeks heating up in embarrassment. _That_ was supposed to be a surprise.

 

“Seriously, Chlo?” Beca whispered at her, but it held no bite. “They’re in my trunk, Stacie.”

 

Amy whooped and ran outside, uncaring that it was still snowing consistently and was followed by the rest of the Bellas, minus Beca and Chloe.

 

“I still can’t believe you’re here,” Chloe murmured, kissing Beca again.

 

“I wouldn’t have missed it, dude,” Beca’s response elicited a huge smile from her so she just held her tighter. “Merry Christmas.”

 

“Merry Christmas, Bec.”

 

“When do you think they’re going to notice we still have the keys to the car?”

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think :)


End file.
